Ridiculous comparison. Both great players in their prime right now - who knows where they will be at 40? AO=great player but where was his team after the first round? consistent is not a word I would use to describe his playoff performance.Last time I checked, when #87 plays a against #5 - the latter shuts him down, even in the playoff series that the Pens won, Crosby was not a big factor.

If you want to compare current players to Lidstrom, find someone who plays his position that is better and more consistent. There are only a few D-men you can even toss out there that would even warrant a discussion.

Ok well they are great right now. Both consistent. We aren't talking about the prime of each player's career. We are talk about RIGHT NOW. AO was consistent in the playoffs. 10 pts, 5 g 5a in 7 games with a +5, which happened to be 2 behind nick in 5 less games.And last time i checked this wasn't a head to head arguement. He asked who was more consistent and idk if you watched hockey this year but crosby was his usually self, plus he scored more goals, while lidstrom struggled to be a top defenseman.Plus yet again we weren't talking positonal. We were talking about who is more consistent since Nick is supposedly th emost consistent player. But yes Drew Doughty was more consistent along with chris progner, mike green.

Based on? How does a defenseman's +/- get worse when the team is better?

2006/07 Nick Lidstrom +/- 40, 2007/08 +/- 40, 2008/09 +/-31, 2009/2010 +/- 22say whatever you want about a depleted roster, but when you are the best defenseman youre +/- shouldn't drop 20 in two years or even almost 10 in one year.

How long has Draper been in this franchise compared to Rafalski when he was signed?

What does the longevity of Draper being in the franchise have to do with the fact that their are 3 better players on the team whose contracts are up and going by your logic should make more money than players who aren't as good as they are.

Because Lidstrom is the most consistent performer out there.

There are much more consitent players out there now. Three years ago you could say this, but today you can't. Did you watch the playoffs at all? Nick was exposed. Yes he is still good but he is not the most consistent player out there. Unless you are talking only Red Wings in which case you may have an arguement. But even then it's gonna be an arguement.

What examples are there in sports where somebody who was considered to be the best at their position in the league took an insanely generous pay cut?

His contract was fair. Simply fair. What other deals have happened that were "incredible generous"?

Wayne Gretzky

Top-5 is only great now? And his +/- was so mundane in comparison this recent year because the team was so god-awful for the majority of it. Nof****** s*** he isn't going to have a career year.

so again his declining +/- had absolutely nothing to do with it. I guarentee you if the team was healthy his +/- would have dropped from the year before. This is just another excuse.

Top-5 IS being a top defenseman in the league. You have ridiculously high standards.

I said THE best, not one of the best. THE best. that can only be one player. Now that i think about it idk if i would say nick was top 5 last year. I think he can be, but he's gotta step up. and bring on the "who would you rather have" because last year there are plenty i would rather have had, but this year i'm glad we got nick. It's a new year and hopefully he proves all us who think he should've come for less wrong.

My point is he shouldn't have to make less than a guy like Rafalski (who also has a NTC to boot) when he plays so much better.

My point is Eaves/helm/abdelkader shouldn't have to make less than a guy like draper (who also has a ntc) whe they play so much better.

If he played at his level in 08, why wouldn't he deserve 7.4 mil like in 08? And how would that hurt the team when they won the cup with that exorbitant cap hit.

IF. last year he did not play at that level so how can management expect to pay him that kind of money if it's unknown whether or not he'll be worth it.

He was never paid league max in the salary cap world.

No one said he was. There are ppl who think he deserves it tho and that is just stupid.

Really? Gofigure!

Look, no one's saying he's going to be as stellar as he was this year, but he'll likely have a better team playing in front of him all season given that another black-plague's worth of injuries doesn't befall this team again this coming season.

Even if Howard did struggle, what savior of a goalie could the Wings sign with that extra $1.2 in cap room that so many are bitching about? That amount of extra cap room is hardly going to solve anything between the pipes.

IT. IS.

(Yes, I screamed it)

I wasn't sayin that we have to find a new goaltender. I was just saying that just because he played well last season doesn't mean he'll be equally as good this year. But i'm also not saying he won't be better. Because who knows. I just hope he's been workingon his five hole lol.

First off I would like to remind everyone that Nick Lidstrom is NOT the best Dman in the league now. Anyone who thinks so has a serious bias towards the wings. Is he still good? Yes. However, he got exposed this year and while i think he can do better, i don't think he is worth 6.5 million.

Howard has proved capable, Sammy was a solid role-player and not too much more and Holland is looking to add a Drake-type player to the fold. No one's underestimating what those guys did. You're just not factoring into the mix what they'll have next year to replace them.

Howard proved capable this year. But who is to say he will next year. A lot of times rookie goalies play well their first year and then struggle the next. Look at Tim Thomas (who i realize wasn't a rookie). He won the veizna and then lost his starting job. It's not guarenteed that Howard will be good next year.

I think NeverForgetMac has brought a lot of proper perspective to this duscussion. Allow me to expanded upon his original retorts.

What is honestly fueling this argument? The fans that are upset regarding the terms of Lidstrom's contract prescribe primarily into 1 of 3 possible ideologies - or some combination thereof.

1) "He should have taken less for the betterment of the team" - The Hometown Discount Clause

Okay, certainly there has been some precedence of this. However, lets shape this argument in a more appropriate context. Lets say you are a factory line worker for General Motors. You've worked and dedicated the prime years of your life to the betterment of the company at the sacrifice of your physical health and meaningful time with your family. You are the most senior member of your assembly team and have the added responsibility of leadership which is rightfully deserved and are considered one of the finest, if not the very best at what you do. You are the receipient of countless company commendations and your pension is securly set for retirement. At this point in your career, you have nothing left to prove and look forward to a life of leisure that is well deserved.

Now, you have worked yourself to the point where you gross $70,000.00 a year. You plan to retire but the company and management at General Motors has asked you to return because they respect you and the quality of the work that you produce. And ask you to come back for another year at $60,0000 - or roughly a 14% pay cut. A person of your quality is not easily replaced, and you are rewarded for you years of dedicated, unfallable service by taking a reduced salary to do everything that you were asked to do for the last 40 years.

Basic Labor Economics states - The Marginal Utility of Free Time Expontentially Increases the Less You Have Time you Have. That is, as each additional hour you work - your free time becomes more valuable because you have less of it - and thus more money is needed to incentivize you to sacrifice your free time. Hence, the concept of Overtime. If you only have 10 hours of free time a week - you protect those hours pretty fiercly and it would take an increase in rate to convince you to work. So, if you were this Assembly line worker - would you take a 14% pay cut when the value of your free time (your retirement) dictates that an increase in salary is needed for you to sacrifice an additional year?

The obvious response is "Well, it's different for the every day worker because he's a Millionaire! He doesn't need the money!"

Yes, it's true - he is not hurting financially. But he also doesn't have any additional skills besides hockey. He had no trade or schooling to speak of - so what we does now is the money that he receives for the rest of his life unless he takes some type of organizational position in hockey. Assuming he lives to the mid 80's - that means he must live for the next 45 years off the money that he has accumulated - that is a massively long retirement horizon. As your retirement horizon increases - so does uncertainty. Take for instance the crisis of 2007 - Sergei Federov lost over $43M to fraudlent investment and market fluctuations. Or the average American who had their savings and pensions crushed by overextending debt by the financials or the liquidity crunch that followed?

What's Lidstrom going to do? Car commercials? Puck Signings? Lidstrom's decision to take a couple of million more may seem "greedy" to someone who doesn't have a net worth of $10M - but he is also doing his best to secure his and his family's financial future for the next four decades and every cent counts.

Like NeverForgetMac says - It's easy to tell someone else to take less money when it's not you. Lidstrom's decision - and I don't believe it was monetarily motivated (even though he would be very justified in doing so) - is because he loves Detroit and respects the organization. Concurrently, the Detroit Red Wings value his contribution and all that he had done for them and rewarded him with his salary request - because of all that he has done for them and not insult him with petty contract negotiations. What is tragic, is that despite all this man has done for this organization and how much he has contributed to the joy for being a Red Wing fans - there are those who question his motivations and unfairly accuse him of being selfish for not "sacrficing" more.

To be continued...

Where's your motivation to come back? Is this general motors worker trying to win a championship? No. I'm sorry but this is still a bad comparison. The GM worker is asked to come back to help them make more money and run the company smoothly. Nick Lidstrom is asked to come back to help win a championship. Right, cuz living with (we'll say) 30 million is so much different then living with 28 or 27. Lidstrom and his family are set for life. I'm pretty sure they can live off of a multi million bank account.

All in all I also am pretty disappointed with the value. I think Nick needs to be back to 2008 form to be worth his 6.5 or whatever million dollars. I just don't understand the thought process that goes in to these players when coming back. Do you wanna make money or win a cup? if you wanna win, take a cut.

No way. Worst fan base on the planet. Narrowly edging out the Blues fans.

TRUTH. I go to school in indiana and that's all i hear about, it's so annoying. But i think the flyers can do it. someone beat me to it and posted a lot of a talent that ppl overlook. philly is sound defensively, not just with defensemen but two way forwards. Mike richards is an animal in that department. I think too many ppl are just looking a big names, everyone needs to remember that this is hockey, not basketball, and any team can win on any night.